Linking Colonial Imperialism to NeoColonial Imperialism & Future of Nation States
Posted on June 11th, 2018

Nothing happens in isolation. Everything has a connection & it is left to us to join the dots & make the distinctions. Where is the world going, what is the future for the global community can be seen in understanding the geopolitics & global dynamics at play. It is in understanding how industrialization, the capitalist system of free markets, liberalization, private ownership & who controls these entities that we can better understand who controls the world & where the world is going.

Retracing backwards by 500 years to the Colonial Project of Colonial imperialism

The present international systems & concepts emerged as an off shoot of Western European Christian colonization of the world.

Therefore, it is imperative that we put into context how the world changed as a result of colonial imperialism & the changes that took place thereafter. It saw a complete shift in the not-so-developed Europe becoming industrialized after draining the once rich-fertile & resource-rich invader nations & turning them into what they are today classified as developing nations suffering consequences of European divide & rule policies which conquerors used as a means of portraying their power & their rule over people & territory which they partitioned & drew according to their advantage. This was how new countries were created including all of the countries of Africa.

What British East India Company, a private profit seeking corporation representing the British Government did during colonial reign is no different to what the Transnational Corporations/Multi-National Corporations are presently doing. We see a subtle movement to remove the Westphalian sovereign nation system & have corporates govern the world. Corporates/INGOs are using political clout to acquire land often for 200 year lease and the buy-in for the scheme is seen in the manner politicians are now turning into corporate heads are heading these supposed to be non-for-profit entities.

Is the world Anglo-European centric?

International laws, education systems, international organizations & the common goals & concepts being rolled out have little place to absorb any of the civilizational cultures, traditions, laws, social systems that existed far before Europeans set out to discover the world. In fact ever since European invaders landed in the Americas, Africa & Asia Pacific their indigenous laws, social systems, traditions, cultures,, education etc all came under the European gavel & everything indigenous became diluted, changed or were completely annihilated. All the laws, conventions, treaties, agreements were all designed by the West, to suit the West & adjudicated according to what the West deemed as right, wrong, ethical, moral etc.

Societies were turned into consumers – divided as rich-poor, have-have-nots, black-white, slaves, elite-working class, rural-urban etc.

There were no constitutions before the Europeans compelled all colonized countries to adapt a new constitution at the time of independence. No one has yet questioned in what capacity invaders can decide a country’s independence & force countries to create constitutions that would bind them to the monitoring of these invader nations who were giving a bogus ‘independence’.

The world is Western-centric

International trade law is based on theories of economic liberalism developed in Europe and later the United States from the 18th century onwards (GATT/WTO)

The next step was to create the modern monetary system tying all nations of the world substituting gold for US dollar as the global currency. The modern monetary theory was created to allow governments the power to issue their own flat currency & force people to use it through taxation. According to the Bretton Woods Agreement signed by 43 countries in 1944 after World War 2 countries promised their central banks would maintain fixed change rates between their currencies & the dollar. Countries could regulate currencies only under conditions. US became the only country with the ability to print dollars.

What is noteworthy is that the UN was established AFTER all these international systems of control were set up thus leaving no room for the developing nations or former colonies to include their demands. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 completely ignores the social differences of 191 UN member states and the 58 nations that existed when it was drafted. All Conventions & Treaties are drafted from looking at issues from the angle of the West – their morals, their ethics, their stands giving no podium to the laws that existed under indigenous rule with older civilizations that the West can boast of.

The Bretton Woods Agreement also created the World Bank & the IMF. IMF could print money & countries could borrow from IMF, adjust their currency value, The World Bank was initially set up to lend to the European countries devastated by World War 2.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank are run by their member governments on the basis of shares they hold. The US government has the largest share of votes in both the IMF and World Bank. United States, Germany, Japan, the U.K. and France control about 40% of the shares in both institutions. the president of the World Bank has always been a U.S. citizen, and the head of the IMF has always been a European. IMF and the World Bank lends money to government on conditions.

Of the 185 members that make up the IMF, six colonial masters and their allies – comprised of the United States, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and Italy – control 42 per cent of the votes.

The IBRD & IDA make up the World Bank

The World Bank Group consists of 5 international organizations

  1. International Bank for Reconstruction & Development (IBRD)
  2. The International Development Association (IDA)
  3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC)
  4. The Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency (MIGA)
  5. The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID)

But who controls the money supply of the world? The Bank for International Settlements which is the Central Bank of Central Banks & located in Basel, Switzerland, founded by the global elite & operates for their benefit. It is immune from taxation & international laws. 58 global central banks belong to the BIS. Only North Korea & the islands of Micronesia do not have a central bank.

How many are aware that the US Federal Reserve (FED) is also a privately owned company. The following banks all of whom are connected to the London Banking Houses have shares in the FED.

  • Rothschild Bank of London
  • Warburg Bank of Hamburg
  • Rothschild Bank of Berlin
  • Lehman Brothers of New York
  • Lazard Brothers of Paris
  • Kuhn Loeb Bank of New York
  • Israel Moses Seif Banks of Italy
  • Goldman, Sachs of New York
  • Warburg Bank of Amsterdam
  • Chase Manhattan Bank of New York

FED prints the money for the US Government but the US Govt has no stocks in the FED yet it has the right to print money through the Treasury. The FED creates money from nothing, and loans it back to us through banks, and charges interest on our currency. The FED also buys Government debt with money printed on a printing press and charges U.S. taxpayers interest.  https://www.globalresearch.ca/who-owns-the-federal-reserve/10489

According to a study by Swiss Federal Institute of Technology on 37 million companies and investors worldwide & concluded that 147 mega-corporations controls 40% of the entire global economy.

According to Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) the United States remains the world’s top arms exporter since 1990. https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2017-03/news/us-leads-rising-global-arms-trade Sales of arms and military services across the world totaled $374.8 billion in 2016 of which $217.2 billion were American companies. Lockheed Martin sold $41 billion of military equipment.

6 giant media corporations control more than 90% of what people watch & read in the US.

According to UNCTAD (United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) report Transnational corporations TNCs – 40,000 parent firms and 250,000 foreign affiliates – account for two-thirds of the world trade in goods and services,

According to OXFAM – 10 companies control the world’s food

  1. Associated British Foods PLC
  2. The Coca-Cola Co
  3. Groupe Danone S.A.
  4. General Mills, Inc.
  5. Kellogg Co.
  6. Mars, Inc.
  7. Mondelez International, Inc.
  8. Nestlé S.A.
  9. PepsiCo Inc.
  10. Unilever Group

Oxfam also declares 8 men own wealth equivalent to the combined wealth owned by 3.6billon of the world’s populace. In other words, what half the world own equals what 8 individuals own!

  1. Bill Gates
  2. Amancio Ortega (Spanish founder of Inditex)
  3. Warren Buffett
  4. Carlos Slim (Mexican businessman)
  5. Jeff Bezos
  6. Mark Zuckerberg
  7. Larry Ellison
  8. Michael Bloomberg

According to Dean Henderson The Four Horsemen of Banking (Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup and Wells Fargo) own the Four Horsemen of Oil (Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch/Shell, BP Amoco and Chevron Texaco)”

The numbers of active MNCs went from being roughly 7,000 in the 1970’s to 78,000 in 2006, being responsible for over half the global industrial output. Some of these companies are now even taking governments to court & tax payers end up paying massive compensations for agreements that have been unethically signed between governments & corporates.

The value of the top 10 corporations was $285tn (£215tn) is more than 180 countries which include Ireland, Indonesia, Israel, Colombia, Greece, South Africa, Iraq and Vietnam (Global Justice Now study)

Tax avoidance by corporations involves the use of low-tax countries and preferential tax regimes.

According to a study by the European Parliamentary Research Service corporate tax-dodging has cost the EU between $54.5 billion and $76.4 billion a year.  Companies are dodging taxes by funneling their profits made in Europe to low-tax countries. To the guilt list includes Google, Apple, Starbucks, Ikea, Amazon, Gap Microsoft, http://fortune.com/2016/03/11/apple-google-taxes-eu/  if the EU are gunning after these MNCs shouldn’t third world countries that provide these tax havens on the claims of foreign investment also increase country claims without offering further tax holidays & incentives for tax dodgers?

Global Financial Integrity says that ‘$900 billion is secreted each year from underdeveloped economies, with an estimated $11.5 trillion currently stashed in havens. More than one quarter of these hubs belong to the UK, while Switzerland washes one-third of global capital flight.’ Of this $900 billion, $150 billion comes from Africa.

According to United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research the estimated tax losses by profit shifting (tax evasions) by multinational companies, the global losses are around $500 billion a year. https://www.taxjustice.net/2017/03/22/new-estimates-tax-avoidance-multinationals/

Khadija Sharife writes:

‘This policy is especially lethal for developing countries where the poor are now caught in tax brackets, courtesy of the IMF and World Bank’s structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), instituting policies ranging from tax holidays” to the privatisation of state services [and] carving out huge slices of natural capital at corporate auctions… Africa has collectively lost more than $600-billion in capital flight, excluding other mechanisms of flight including ecological debt (globally estimated at a potential $1.8-trillion per annum), the cost of liberalised trade (just under $300-billion) … and the list goes on…’

While Jerry Brown says “Multinational corporations do control. They control the politicians. They control the media. They control the pattern of consumption, entertainment, thinking. They’re destroying the planet and laying the foundation for violent outbursts and racial division.” 

In his book, “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” (2004) [7] , John Perkins states how he was hired by such organizations to coerce leaders of developing countries to take high levels of un payable loans in favor of a quick short time gain. He states that by doing so, the country would eventually default or ask for more time, upon which these multinationals would sweep in and monopolize the markets.

Meanwhile, the UN says the cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world’s biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable”

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/18/worlds-top-firms-environmental-damage

According to The Economist though multinationals account for only 2% of the worlds jobs, they own or orchestrate the supply chains that account for over 50% of world trade; they make up 40% of the value of the West’s stock markets; and they own most of the world’s intellectual property”

Who says MNCs are not corrupt – look at the extent of the crimes they engage in

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2011/12/13/The-Ten-Largest-Global-Business-Corruption-Cases

http://www.businessinsider.com/11-examples-of-recent-corruption-on-wall-street-2010-4#repo-105-6

The corporate clout has been such that even governments & leaders have been toppled – South America & even Iran’s Mossadegh is an example & reveals the extent to which corporates can manipulate even the strongest of governments through money & lobbying. Transfer of MNCs to developing countries results in unemployment in western countries as statistics clearly reveal (200,000 are jobless in US)

Orchestrated economic crisis will have IMF force governments to privatize national assets – energy, agriculture, transport etc which will fall into private hands and soon citizens will become employees of global corporates whose rules & regulations will conform to national laws. It will place people in servitude. This would entail the curtailing & reducing of both police & military & the manner military is being clipped in terms of manpower & equipment (Salawa incident) – all aimed at denying any nation state to challenge any external power. Notice the build-up of the UN as the sole one world government – the decider of all laws, the decider of what morals people follow, the decider of who gives justice & who are the enemies. Notice too how people are being electronically filed to identify & monitor them. The use of terror organizations to curtail people’s freedoms by introducing laws & legislations has worked to perfection. The manner that a handful of organizations are controlling the food flow globally which is tied to various issues of chemicals & other saturated elements have seen increase in death by artificial substances, poisons, contaminations & cancers. Do we consume anything natural today?

The next player is the media that controls society through strategy of distraction. Keeping people busy with sensationalized item is the name of the game. Watch our people’s emotions are being tapped & how education is being experimented in such a way that children grow up not thinking for themselves but to think it is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar & hippie & this failure of intelligence makes them blame themselves & draw them to suicidal & depressants that again make the handful of companies richer. Look at how the West is on prescription drugs – even children.

The other method now liberally used is to create the problem, create the desire reaction & then set out the solutions that had already been designed before the problem or the reactions were created. Put this scenario against several conflicts for which the reactions have resulted in unbelievable solutions that have only curtailed people’s freedoms & rights.

Yes, politicians & the political system may be corrupt but then it is we who elect them & it is we who can change them. The people essentially have a voice. Imagine if the nation state was abolished & in its place corporates & NGOs ruled, they own the resources, they own the assets & they even own us – we don’t elect them, we can’t even change them and they are not accountable or answerable to any of us.

Is this a good arrangement as an alternative to a corrupt government/governance?

Shenali D Waduge

4 Responses to “Linking Colonial Imperialism to NeoColonial Imperialism & Future of Nation States”

  1. Christie Says:

    Forget the far away places.

    Look around.

    Indian Colonial Parasites and Indian Empire is over our heads.

    Go for a walk in Pettah and listen; it is not English or any other European.

    Wake for our own liberation from Indian imperialism and colonialism.

  2. Nimal Says:

    Facts written in this article very much closer to the reality. With respect to Sri Lanka I would like to point out the people who support and gained from this kind of neo Colonialism.It is the two bit rouges that are in the Parliament who pretend to be patriots, good budhists,chiristians,muslims and whatever. They appropriately dressed up in the national ambude to deceive the people.
    They borrow from these institutions for their personal gain, without ever getting the consent of the hard working taxpayers who pay their bills.It is up to the people of SL gettogether and stop this nonsense. We can’t put the blame on these lending vultures.
    People in the third world is slowly realizing this because they are in a desperate situation with out jobs, some without a square meal to eat are protesting in the streets against their governments borrowing money from the institutions life the IMF.Seee the protests in Argentina,Jordan and other countries protesting against their regimes borrowing money from likes of IMF.
    I am a frim supporter of our last colonials who did such a good but the present day people who are trying to rob our assets without pity using our crooked politicians. We should work hard to get the money stolen out of the country back and put honest people to run the country I condemn.

    One country we must follow as an example is UK,the reason it’s my home. We must be bold enough to accept and speak the truth instead of praising politicians who are crooks, praising our history which has no relevance.
    You see what is happening and Hauge where Criminal and murderous president of Congo who was convicted with crime against humanity but on appeal he was exonerated because he had stashed millions in EU, spent millions on legal expenses and he will be released to go back to his country and rob more and stash the money abroad, murdering more of his people in the process. President Mombutu stashed over 36 billion in Switzerland and where is that money now, after his death?
    But there is a glimmer of hope with the enforcement people who are passionate and working for a salary and they will convict them in some other way as there are more than one way to kill the cat.
    Sri Lanka is self-sufficient and we could finance our selves on our day today expenditure of the country without borrowing from outside sources. We must not get involved in absurd infrastructure projects that is sucking the lifeblood of the country. Our politicians are agents of the vile neo colonialists but I like old colonialists to come back and clean the country from the bottom to the top.

  3. Nimal Says:

    Facts written in this article very much closer to the reality. With respect to Sri Lanka I would like to point out the people who support and gained from this kind of neo Colonialism.It is the two bit rouges that are in the Parliament who pretend to be patriots, good budhists,chiristians,muslims and whatever. They appropriately dressed up in the national ambude to deceive the people.
    They borrow from these institutions for their personal gain, without ever getting the consent of the hard working taxpayers who pay their bills.It is up to the people of SL get together and stop this nonsense. We can’t put the blame on these lending vultures.
    People in the third world is slowly realizing this because they are in a desperate situation with out jobs, some without a square meal to eat are protesting in the streets against their governments borrowing money from the institutions like the IMF.See the protests in Argentina,Jordan and other countries protesting against their regimes borrowing money from likes of IMF.
    I am a firm supporter of our last colonials who did such a good but the present day people who are trying to rob our assets without pity using our crooked politicians. We should work hard to get the money stolen out of the country back and put honest people to run the country I condemn.

    One country we must follow as an example is UK,the reason it’s my home. We must be bold enough to accept and speak the truth instead of praising politicians who are crooks, praising our history which has no relevance.
    You see what is happening and Hauge where Criminal and murderous president of Congo who was convicted with crime against humanity but on appeal he was exonerated because he had stashed millions in EU, spent millions on legal expenses and he will be released to go back to his country and rob more and stash the money abroad, murdering more of his people in the process. President Mombutu stashed over 36 billion in Switzerland and where is that money now, after his death?
    But there is a glimmer of hope with the enforcement people who are passionate and working for a salary and they will convict them in some other way as there are more than one way to kill the cat.
    Sri Lanka is self-sufficient and we could finance our selves on our day today expenditure of the country without borrowing from outside sources. We must not get involved in absurd infrastructure projects that is sucking the lifeblood of the country. Our politicians are agents of the vile neo colonialists but I like old colonialists to come back and clean the country from the bottom to the top.

  4. Christie Says:

    “One country we must follow as an example is UK,the reason it’s my home. We must be bold enough to accept and speak the truth instead of praising politicians who are crooks, praising our history which has no relevance.”

    Nimal; it is Queens Bithday celebrations and I am sure they are not “.praising our (their) history which has no relevance.”

    The problem we have is the same like in Africa where Indians suck off the wealth and take it out of the country to UK, India , Europe and USA.

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